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Do joint custody laws improve family well-being?

Joint child custody laws affect not only
divorced families but intact families as well

Elevator pitch

Custody laws governing living arrangements for
children following their parents’ divorce have changed dramatically since
the 1970s. Traditionally, one parent—usually the mother—was assigned sole
custody of the child. Today, many divorced parents continue to share
parental rights and responsibilities through joint custody arrangements.
While joint custody laws have improved the situation of divorced fathers,
recent empirical research has documented intended and unintended
consequences of joint custody laws for families in such areas as family
formation, labor force participation, suicide, domestic violence, and child
outcomes.

Key findings

Pros

The introduction of joint custody
reforms boosts marriage rates, particularly among people with
previous divorce experience and those aged 35 or older.

Joint custody reforms have lowered
male suicide rates by about 9% over the long term.

Joint custody reforms have reduced
the incidence of domestic violence.

Children of divorced parents growing
up under joint custody reforms may have higher educational
attainment.

Cons

The introduction of joint custody
reforms reinforces the traditional division of labor within the
family and gives men greater bargaining power over the
intra-household allocation of resources.

There is some evidence that joint
custody reforms increase divorce rates.

Joint custody reforms reduce female
labor market participation.

Joint custody reforms have had no
robust, long-term effect on female suicide rates.

Children overall and those in intact
families growing up in jurisdictions with joint custody laws
have lower educational attainment and worse labor market
outcomes.

Author's main message

Joint custody reforms increase the bargaining
power of men within marriage and alter the allocation of resources within
the household. The empirical evidence suggests that these shifts reinforce
the traditional division of household labor, with both positive and negative
effects. On the positive side, marriage and fertility rates rise, and male
suicides and domestic violence decline. On the negative side, female labor
supply drops, and average education and labor market outcomes for children
worsen. Policymakers should acknowledge that regulating families’
post-divorce life may affect intact families and try to minimize any
unintended negative consequences.